FringeReview UK 2025

John Joubert Jane Eyre, Grimeborn Opera

Green Opera, Grimeborn Opera, Arcola Theatre, Dalston

Genre: Adaptation, classical, Drama, Live Music, Mainstream Theatre, Music, Opera and Operatic Theatre, Theatre

Venue: Arcola Theatre, Studio 1

Festival: FringeReview UK

Low Down

Review

Though seemingly ideal for operatic treatment, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre might have seemed forbiddingly well-loved. Nevertheless almost simultaneously it inspired two operas. Though Michael Berkeley’s 72 minute two-act work was staged and recorded in 2000 after the original first half was stolen, it never established itself. John Joubert’s Jane Eyre was written 1987-97 and in 2016 also recorded in a concert version.

Only now though at the Arcola’s Grimeborn Festival, has it reached the stage. Directed by Eleanor Burke in Studio 1 for Green Opera till August 9^th, it’s a must-see. The sound-world’s seductive, tonal, and the reduced chamber score gleams and flickers, with some romantic heft and sharply-charactered horn, piano, and clarinet. Pure Grimeborn in fact.

Joubert (1927-2019) and librettist Kenneth Birkin (who’s present at the four performances) began developing Jane Eyre from 1987 to ’97, corresponding by over 700 letters. Joubert’s a post-Britten composer, one of the last of the Cheltenham symphonist school who wrote extensively for all genres: but he’s famous for his choral music. Jane Eyre was his eighth and final opera, originally in full score.

Two kinds of reduction are possible. For Studio 2 there’s usually just a trio of instrumentalists. Following usual Grimeborn practice, for Studio 1 the opera is reorchestrated for a chamber ensemble (string quartet, harp, French horn, bassoon, piano, and regular and bass clarinet, cor anglais) by Thomas Ang (who previously reorchestrated Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle for Green Opera’s 5-star 2022 production).

This makes its ensemble breathe out fiery points of melody, and on occasion richness. In recalling the chamber forces of Britten’s The Rape of Lucrece, seen here in 2018, it brings Joubert closer to one source of inspiration. But the differences are clear too. Joubert is an edgy melodist, and if there aren’t so many great overriding melodies, every vocal line’s both tailored to character and eminently singable. Unlike Britten too Joubert can go for big romantic moments unclouded by ironic self-doubt, when he needs to. That’s essential for the headlong romanticism fuelling Jane Eyre.

It’s ideal for Arcola’s Studio 1 too. Kenneth Woods, who conducted the opera’s concert premiere and recording, returns to lead the performances, sharing the podium with current Royal Opera Jette Parker Artist Peggy Wu, who conducts on this occasion. The musicians (Alex Harmon, Aleem Kandour, Daniil Zemtstov, Thomas Vidal, Evangeline Tang, David Wheeler, Lewis Graham) are exemplary. It’s quite wonderful playing, and on occasion one is drawn just to watch them playing stage-right in an alcove.

Emeline Beroud’s set design and lighting features early Victorian grey dresses and black suits, and an array of items: a sheaf of papers (Holy writ, patriarchal law) suspended above head height. Elsewhere there’s a contrast of flowers: constrained, trained, a woman’s place. It conveys all the navigational tools of patriarchy and women’s ornamental place. But strikingly, red cords feature: often with performers pulling on main protagonists as they strain to free themselves of the gyres of early Victorian mores. And they’re strands towards the solitary figure of Bertha above on the mezzanine weaving a vast red tapestry: half Lady of Shallot, half a hopeless Penelope.

The libretto cleverly weaves four main incidents – each a separate act – in the novel as a flash of memory. Jane leaving Lowood defying the head teacher. Then established at Thornfield (with the hint of partying) saving Rochester from Bertha’s fire-raising. After the interval the botched wedding, and finally the confrontation, again with an authority figure in St John Rivers and the call of Rochester and return. It’s symmetrically neat and spans more of the novel than Berkeley’s for instance.

Yet there’s a curious dramatic lightness infusing some of the two hours 15 that might have been avoided. That’s the Bertha in the room, or rather above: the madwoman in the attic or here, mezzanine. I’d like to see Jean Rhys stalking out to demand that here at least Bertha be given a voice: a long melismatic vocalese, something to puncture her silencing. We’re told her dancing is an analogue to the singing; as Bertha weaves hypnotically round others just as she sets fires below; or even in one late gesture uses her tapestry to (almost) bless the couple.

But I’d accept any bit of casuistry to bet that if Joubert saw this performed as an opera he’d feel the lack of Bertha’s voice more acutely. Even Bertha’s off-stage death is merely recounted; Steffi Fashokun’s Bertha Mason might wordlessly convey trauma, dream and turmoil, and she’s superb: but surely red lighting and a wild final dance wouldn’t be too distracting. It’s one of those moments where Joubert needs help so as not to seem to skim over the abyss of love, and its lack.

Singing’s almost wholly confined (especially early on) to the two main protagonists. Laura Mekhail in a high coloratura soprano with a glittering set of top-notes, unfolds Jane’s stubborn growth with a trenchant radiance; and sudden shaft of passion that’s as extreme as you could wish. She lacks neither force nor wit, right from her first defiance. There’s an acoustic that occludes soprano diction more than bass, but surtitles help throughout. And this is where Mekhail’s potent chest register powers out.

Hector Bloggs’ penetrating baritone and superb diction shudders Rochester’s command, regret and fined-down, bleak despair. Bloggs possesses the right glowering presence but also vulnerability. Anna Sideris, Emily Hodkinson and Lawrence Thackeray offer a harmonised Victorian normality as the Rivers’ family: they harmonise deliciously, but the excellent and characterful Sideris and Hodkinson have little to do. They don’t even multi-role save to swell the great Act Three chant of “Bigamy, Bigamy, Bigamy!” echoed later by Bloggs’ “Jane… Jane… Jane…”

Thackeray though is excellent: a handsome domineering presence as St John Rivers, he’s already lacked charm as the Lowood head and now goes on to provide a more compelling apex of confrontation as Mekhail increasingly listens to her voices, not his singular one. It’s pivotal in this version, made far more dramatic than the book, and swivels on Jane heeding the call. There are speaking parts too, strictly limited, with for instance Chris Murphy’s Reverend Wood

This Jane Eyre has potential for huge success. Notwithstanding my caveats – about Bertha most of all, and indeed the serious underuse of two singers who don’t even sing in the first two acts, there’s a gripping romantic opera premiere emerging right out of Dalston. Arcola’s Grimeborn have scored another first with a future.

Laura Mekhail – Jane Eyre
Hector Bloggs – Edward Rochester
Anna Sideris – Sarah / Leah / Diana Rivers
Emily Hodkinson – Mrs Fairfax / Mary Rivers
Lawrence Thackeray – Richard Mason / Rev St John Rivers
Alexander Semple – Briggs / Brocklehurst
Chris Murphy – Rev Wood
Steffi Fashokun – Bertha Mason

Alex Harmon – Oboe / Cor Anglais
Aleem Kandour – Violin
Daniil Zemtstov – Viola
Thomas Vidal – Cello
Evangeline Tang – Double Bass
David Wheeler – Horn
Lewis Graham – Clarinet

John Joubert (1927-2019) – Composer
Kenneth Birkin – Librettist
Eleanor Burke – Director
Alex Gotch – Movement Director
Kenneth Woods – Musical Director / Conductor
Peggy Wu – Associate Musical Director / Associate Conductor
Emeline Beroud – Production Designer
Trui Malten – Lighting Designer
Oscar Simms – Assistant Director

Published August 8, 2025August 8, 2025 by Simon Jenner